President Donald Trump suggested on Wednesday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions consider prosecuting Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for “obstruction of justice” because she warned illegal immigrants in February about potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

During a White House roundtable event with elected officials and law enforcement officials from California who oppose the state’s sanctuary laws, Trump said, “You had a thousand people together, many of them were illegals, criminals… and she informed them and they all fled.”

“They all fled, or most of them fled. And that whole operation that took a long time to put together,” Trump said. “You talk about obstruction of justice. I would recommend that you look into obstruction of justice for the mayor of Oakland, California, Jeff.”

Trump continued: “[Schaaf] advises thousand people… they’re told ‘get out of here, the law enforcement’s coming.’ And you worked on that long and hard and you got there and there were very few people there. To me that’s obstruction of justice and perhaps the Department of Justice can look into that, with respect to the mayor, because it’s a big deal out there, and a lot of people are very angry about what happened.”

Trump added that “there’s a lot of hard work and a lot of danger involved” in immigration enforcement and Schaaf’s alert “was a terrible thing.”

ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan previously said that Schaaf acted like a “gang lookout yelling ‘police’” and added that at least 800 illegal immigrants were possibly not detained because of Schaaf’s warning.

Schaaf, though, has insisted on multiple occasions that she did not break the law or endanger law enforcement officials.

In March, before Sessions announced that the Trump administration was suing California over three of its sanctuary laws, Breitbart’s Joel Pollak asked Sessions in an exclusive interview about a potential Justice Department investigation into Schaaf’s actions:

Breitbart News: The number one question people on social media wanted me to ask you was: will the Justice Department be taking action against Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who warned illegal aliens in the Bay Area of ain impending ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] enforcement action and who has said she would be prepared to go to jail to protect her city’s status as a “sanctuary”jurisdiction. I know the acting director of ICE said there was a DOJ investigation into her. Can you comment on that? What are the prospects of that, going forward?

Sessions: I believe that the mayor made a colossal error in her statement that placed the safety of our federal law officers at risk, and that increased the likelihood that hundreds of serious criminals would avoid arrest and continue to remain on our streets, posing a risk to the people of the Bay Area. And we are in communication with [Acting ICE] Director [Thomas] Homan, and we look forward to reviewing the facts as they present them to our attorneys. But I couldn’t comment beyond that.

On Wednesday, Schaaf tweeted that she was headed to D.C. to get funding for affordable housing and homeless services and was “#NotObstructing.”

Libby Schaaf
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Spent the day presenting our vision to make college a reality for every child from #Oakland. Now onto DC to fight for federal $$$ for affordable housing and homeless services w bipartisan @mayorsandceos. #NotDistracted #NotObstructing #DoingMyJob
2:16 PM - 16 May 2018

I think a deeper issue is that there is illegal lobbying on behalf of foreign principals, and this is what the DOJ has to get tougher on. This is simply a matter of standard diplomatic protocol---that citizens of one country don't meddle in other countries policies, EXCEPT via legitimate avenues. In the USA this was enacted into law by the Foreign Agents Registration act and the Lobbying Disclosure Act. In both of these cases it was at the behest of Democrat presidents. Although elected officials have to own their actions, they are under pressure from organizations with immigrants clients. Lawful Permanent Residents are acknowledge to be constituents. BUT those who are not lawfully admitted are still FOREIGN PRINCIPALS.

This is supposed to be handled by the US DOJ FARA unit. There are also registration requirements, via the US DOJ, for certain classes of even lawfully admitted aliens, and this enforcement has gotten sloppy, also. But I think the big picture is lobbying efforts via illegal aliens, and also lobbying on their behalf and this is what Sessions DOJ should get tougher on. I know it would cause a big howl in the media!https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara

28 USC 611 Registration of Foreign Propagandists".....As used in and for the purposes of this subchapter—(a) The term ‘‘person’’ includes an individual,partnership, association, corporation, organization,or any other combination of individuals;(b) The term ‘‘foreign principal’’ includes—(1) a government of a foreign country and aforeign political party;(2) a person outside of the United States, unlessit is established that such person is an individualand a citizen of and domiciled withinthe United States, or that such person is notan individual and is organized under or createdby the laws of the United States or of anyState or other place subject to the jurisdictionof the United States and has its principalplace of business within the United States; and(3) a partnership, association, corporation,organization, or other combination of personsorganized under the laws of or having its principalplace of business in a foreign country.
(c) Expect 1 as provided in subsection (d) ofthis section, the term ‘‘agent of a foreign principal’’means—(1) any person who acts as an agent, representative,employee, or servant, or any personwho acts in any other capacity at theorder, request, or under the direction or control,of a foreign principal or of a person anyof whose activities are directly or indirectlysupervised, directed, controlled, financed, orsubsidized in whole or in major part by a foreignprincipal, and who directly or throughany other person—

(i) engages within the United States in politicalactivities for or in the interests ofsuch foreign principal;(ii) acts within the United States as a publicrelations counsel, publicity agent, information-serviceemployee or political consultantfor or in the interests of such foreignprincipal;(iii) within the United States solicits, collects,disburses, or dispenses contributions,loans, money, or other things of value for orin the interest of such foreign principal; or(iv) within the United States representsthe interests of such foreign principal beforeany agency or official of the Government ofthe United States;"

This is the opposite of a whistleblower. What is the expression that criminal organizations use for someone who alerts the rest? IMO, the DOJ would really have to have its arguments down very well. Schaaf could claim sovereign immunity, state's rights, that she was only alerting those with civil cases, or probably another list of arguments legal advocacy groups would provide her.

Still, Trump is right to try because what she did was wrong, dangerous and put Americans at risk to benefit criminal illegal aliens. Makes no sense, and she is clearly on the take with the cartels like all the other sanctuary city and state politicians. These politicians aren't interested in "votes", they're not even interested in these jobs that pay so little, they want the jobs that pay a few thousands so they can collect millions in cartel payoffs.

Still, Trump is right to try because what she did was wrong, dangerous and put Americans at risk to benefit criminal illegal aliens. Makes no sense, and she is clearly on the take with the cartels like all the other sanctuary city and state politicians. These politicians aren't interested in "votes", they're not even interested in these jobs that pay so little, they want the jobs that pay a few thousands so they can collect millions in cartel payoffs.

Your obsession with and magnification of the drug cartel's power of influence completely ignores the many other reasons illegal alien advocates support open borders and illegal immigrants.

As hard as it may be for you to believe, the majority of those supporting and actively advocating for illegal immigrants are not connected to the drug cartels. I'm not saying the drug cartels don't have their hooks in many local politicians along the border and maybe even a few state politicians in the border states. I'm just saying you seem to always magnify the cartels power way beyond what it actually is. To what end, I don't know.

May 16, 2018
Trump continued: “[Schaaf] advises thousand people… they’re told ‘get out of here, the law enforcement’s coming.’ And you worked on that long and hard and you got there and there were very few people there. To me that’s obstruction of justice and perhaps the Department of Justice can look into that, with respect to the mayor, because it’s a big deal out there, and a lot of people are very angry about what happened.”